Over the years I’ve read a great deal about the different ways humans emotionally react to animals and the effects of those human emotions on animal well-being. However I can’t recall any article or book that captured the essence of these idiosyncratic, sometimes downright irrational human responses as well as Trash Animals: How we live with nature’s filthy, feral, invasive, and unwanted species edited by Kelsi Nagy and Phillip David Johnson II.
Although a body of scientific data exists for each of the animal species represented in these essays, several qualities give this collection its particular impact. Heading the list, the entries are written by those who don’t hesitate to share their sometimes conflicting emotions regarding their up close and personal interactions with these creatures. Additionally, the contributors all possess the writing skills necessary to communicate the nuances of our complicated relationships with these species to a wide audience. Unlike those writing research articles in which any reference to one’s feelings about the subject matter is at least greatly frowned upon if not strictly forbidden, the contributors to Trash Animals don’t hesitate to share the sometimes schizophrenic range of emotions that their encounters with these animals create.
All of the essays impressed me and gave me much food for thought, but I want to mention a few that accomplished this particularly well. Charles Bergman writes of that sublime moment when he couldn’t tell for sure where he ended and the animal—in his case, a wolf—began. Anyone who’s ever had this experience with an animal will know exactly what he means. Later in that same essay he shares his feelings about traveling to Ellesmere Island to see arctic wolves, only to experience them running behind a horn-honking garbage truck like so many trained dogs, their white fur soiled with grease and soot. The heart-breaking image his words elicited will stick with me for a long, long time.
Catherine Pucket describes her double life as one who understands and admires the physiology and behavior of snakes, but lives among those who perceive these same animals through a thick lens of mythology and superstition and then despise the results of these human projections. Lisa Couturier’s essay, “One Nation under Coyote, Divisible,” reflects some of the mixed emotions I experienced when I learned that the coyotes in my area more likely were coyote-wolf hybrids. On the one hand, that answered a lot of previously unanswered questions about the size and conformation of the animals I sometimes see loping down my road after dark. On the other, this particular wild combination strikes me as potentially more human-savvy than either of its wild components. I applaud this as an excellent strategy for animals living in environments increasingly invaded by humans and all their manmade paraphernalia. But it also raises the specter of hybrid wild animals who know more about me and my ways than I know about them and theirs. I’m still working that one through…
Michael Branch presents readers with a painful transformation from pacifist to warrior with which many parents may identify when he describes how the theft of his daughter’s pacifier converts him from a pack-rat admirer to adversary. Phillip David Johnson II’s and Kyhl Lyndgaard’s essays on fishing for carp and bullhead catfish, two more species that benefit from slovenly human habits, forever changed the way I’ll look at the environments in which these animals live.
Perhaps because of my interest in the One Health Initiative which strives to take a more comprehensive view of conditions humans and animals may share, it struck me that we humans basically take the same approach to many of the species explored in this book as we do to many of the animal carriers of diseases transmissible to humans. The animals in the book earn the label of “trash” plus adjectives like “filthy”, “feral” (sneaky?), “invasive” or “unwanted” because it’s much easier to perceive the animals as the problem instead of the often multiple human-orchestrated factors that resulted the animals’ presence in the first place. It’s our filth, our sneaking around any rules, and our displays of invasive and unwanted unhealthy behaviors that are the real cause of the problem. Think of these as, for the most part, random acts of self-serving short-sightedness that come back to haunt us in animal form. Faced with the living, breathing evidence of our folly, like Lady Macbeth we hope to rid ourselves of the evidence but it keeps coming back. Only in the case of the residues and side-effects of some of the poisons used in our misguided attempts at mass animal extinction of these animals, future generations of humans and animals will be dealing with the results of our folly long after we’re gone.
Another recurrent theme in this collection highlights yet another role human beliefs play in our relationships with animals: the belief that food equals love. When that belief becomes a compulsion, it undermines the success of programs designed to permit human and wild animal populations to stabilize and co-exist peacefully. Instead, these well-meaning but misguided folks help perpetuate the image of the animals as pests and increase the probability that more drastic measures will be taken against them that also may jeopardize the survival of other creatures.
This human behavior particularly intrigues me because it also occurs among those with companion animals. The symbolic connection some people make between food and love may become so strong that they will continue feeding their pets even though doing so undermines the animal’s health and behavior. Although some of these people do display signs of mental dysfunction, most appear quite rational otherwise. As a veterinarian, I can describe the negative effects of the extra weight on their almost invariably beloved pets’ health and these folks will nod in agreement and ask questions that indicate they understand my concerns. Some of them I’m sure know the spiel as well as I do because they’ve heard it so often from one source or another. They inevitably fully support the fewer-calories-more-exercise routine and vow to do it for as long as it takes. And yet, far often no long-term change occurs in the underlying beliefs and emotions that support over-feeding. As one of my particularly honest clients admitted with tears streaming down his face, “I know what I’m doing and how it’s hurting her, but it’s the best part of our day.” Other evidence of the power of this human belief over animal reality comes from the latest survey conducted by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. A mind-boggling 93% of the dog-owners and 88% of the cat-owners whose pets were diagnosed as clinically obese (not just overweight) perceived their pets’ weight as normal. While distressing, such cases nonetheless provide evidence of the formidable role the symbolism we attach to animals and our interactions with them plays in their well-being.
One deviation from the overall tone set by Trash Animals is Jeffrey Lockwood’s essay on the prairie lubber, and specifically the feelings of disgust elicited by the insect’s habit of vomiting and defecating large volumes of fetid excrement when stressed. I found his views fascinating in anthrozoological terms because, as a veterinarian, mother, and grandmother, I have been vomited and defecated on by a range of human and nonhuman animals and never once interpreted this to mean “that nature usually doesn’t give a shit about us, and when it does, it is as likely to shit on us as to embrace us.” I simply viewed the other’s behavior as normal given the circumstances surrounding it. On the other hand, this essay does prove once again what a potent role our beliefs play in our responses to animals and their behaviors and in that regard it supports this theme of the book.
Trash Animals concludes with a short collection of philosophical contemplations about human-animal interactions, at least some of which will be familiar to most readers. Like the longer essays these vignettes remind us that, above all, our interactions with animals are complicated. Because of this, this book of intimate personal accounts has much to teach us about the intricacy and variability of the human-animal bond, and I highly recommend it to anyone desiring those insights.
Although a body of scientific data exists for each of the animal species represented in these essays, several qualities give this collection its particular impact. Heading the list, the entries are written by those who don’t hesitate to share their sometimes conflicting emotions regarding their up close and personal interactions with these creatures. Additionally, the contributors all possess the writing skills necessary to communicate the nuances of our complicated relationships with these species to a wide audience. Unlike those writing research articles in which any reference to one’s feelings about the subject matter is at least greatly frowned upon if not strictly forbidden, the contributors to Trash Animals don’t hesitate to share the sometimes schizophrenic range of emotions that their encounters with these animals create.
All of the essays impressed me and gave me much food for thought, but I want to mention a few that accomplished this particularly well. Charles Bergman writes of that sublime moment when he couldn’t tell for sure where he ended and the animal—in his case, a wolf—began. Anyone who’s ever had this experience with an animal will know exactly what he means. Later in that same essay he shares his feelings about traveling to Ellesmere Island to see arctic wolves, only to experience them running behind a horn-honking garbage truck like so many trained dogs, their white fur soiled with grease and soot. The heart-breaking image his words elicited will stick with me for a long, long time.
Catherine Pucket describes her double life as one who understands and admires the physiology and behavior of snakes, but lives among those who perceive these same animals through a thick lens of mythology and superstition and then despise the results of these human projections. Lisa Couturier’s essay, “One Nation under Coyote, Divisible,” reflects some of the mixed emotions I experienced when I learned that the coyotes in my area more likely were coyote-wolf hybrids. On the one hand, that answered a lot of previously unanswered questions about the size and conformation of the animals I sometimes see loping down my road after dark. On the other, this particular wild combination strikes me as potentially more human-savvy than either of its wild components. I applaud this as an excellent strategy for animals living in environments increasingly invaded by humans and all their manmade paraphernalia. But it also raises the specter of hybrid wild animals who know more about me and my ways than I know about them and theirs. I’m still working that one through…
Michael Branch presents readers with a painful transformation from pacifist to warrior with which many parents may identify when he describes how the theft of his daughter’s pacifier converts him from a pack-rat admirer to adversary. Phillip David Johnson II’s and Kyhl Lyndgaard’s essays on fishing for carp and bullhead catfish, two more species that benefit from slovenly human habits, forever changed the way I’ll look at the environments in which these animals live.
Perhaps because of my interest in the One Health Initiative which strives to take a more comprehensive view of conditions humans and animals may share, it struck me that we humans basically take the same approach to many of the species explored in this book as we do to many of the animal carriers of diseases transmissible to humans. The animals in the book earn the label of “trash” plus adjectives like “filthy”, “feral” (sneaky?), “invasive” or “unwanted” because it’s much easier to perceive the animals as the problem instead of the often multiple human-orchestrated factors that resulted the animals’ presence in the first place. It’s our filth, our sneaking around any rules, and our displays of invasive and unwanted unhealthy behaviors that are the real cause of the problem. Think of these as, for the most part, random acts of self-serving short-sightedness that come back to haunt us in animal form. Faced with the living, breathing evidence of our folly, like Lady Macbeth we hope to rid ourselves of the evidence but it keeps coming back. Only in the case of the residues and side-effects of some of the poisons used in our misguided attempts at mass animal extinction of these animals, future generations of humans and animals will be dealing with the results of our folly long after we’re gone.
Another recurrent theme in this collection highlights yet another role human beliefs play in our relationships with animals: the belief that food equals love. When that belief becomes a compulsion, it undermines the success of programs designed to permit human and wild animal populations to stabilize and co-exist peacefully. Instead, these well-meaning but misguided folks help perpetuate the image of the animals as pests and increase the probability that more drastic measures will be taken against them that also may jeopardize the survival of other creatures.
This human behavior particularly intrigues me because it also occurs among those with companion animals. The symbolic connection some people make between food and love may become so strong that they will continue feeding their pets even though doing so undermines the animal’s health and behavior. Although some of these people do display signs of mental dysfunction, most appear quite rational otherwise. As a veterinarian, I can describe the negative effects of the extra weight on their almost invariably beloved pets’ health and these folks will nod in agreement and ask questions that indicate they understand my concerns. Some of them I’m sure know the spiel as well as I do because they’ve heard it so often from one source or another. They inevitably fully support the fewer-calories-more-exercise routine and vow to do it for as long as it takes. And yet, far often no long-term change occurs in the underlying beliefs and emotions that support over-feeding. As one of my particularly honest clients admitted with tears streaming down his face, “I know what I’m doing and how it’s hurting her, but it’s the best part of our day.” Other evidence of the power of this human belief over animal reality comes from the latest survey conducted by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. A mind-boggling 93% of the dog-owners and 88% of the cat-owners whose pets were diagnosed as clinically obese (not just overweight) perceived their pets’ weight as normal. While distressing, such cases nonetheless provide evidence of the formidable role the symbolism we attach to animals and our interactions with them plays in their well-being.
One deviation from the overall tone set by Trash Animals is Jeffrey Lockwood’s essay on the prairie lubber, and specifically the feelings of disgust elicited by the insect’s habit of vomiting and defecating large volumes of fetid excrement when stressed. I found his views fascinating in anthrozoological terms because, as a veterinarian, mother, and grandmother, I have been vomited and defecated on by a range of human and nonhuman animals and never once interpreted this to mean “that nature usually doesn’t give a shit about us, and when it does, it is as likely to shit on us as to embrace us.” I simply viewed the other’s behavior as normal given the circumstances surrounding it. On the other hand, this essay does prove once again what a potent role our beliefs play in our responses to animals and their behaviors and in that regard it supports this theme of the book.
Trash Animals concludes with a short collection of philosophical contemplations about human-animal interactions, at least some of which will be familiar to most readers. Like the longer essays these vignettes remind us that, above all, our interactions with animals are complicated. Because of this, this book of intimate personal accounts has much to teach us about the intricacy and variability of the human-animal bond, and I highly recommend it to anyone desiring those insights.